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The state is greeting Governor Patrick’s proposal to provide shelter for some of the Central American children now crossing the border into the U.S. with both praise and derision.

Some are applauding the Governor for rekindling the Massachusetts tradition of leading by example: like Governor John Winthrop, he is calling on us to recognize that we are as a city upon on a hill with the eyes of the world upon us. Others are scornful of the notion of opening our doors to these speakers of other languages and their rumored crime and drug-resistant diseases.

Gone is the consensus that prevailed in 2008 when President George W. Bush signed into law the Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act, under which the nation resolved not to send children from countries other than Mexico and Canada entering the U.S. alone back to their country of origin before hearing their claims to stay. Now resolutions disapproving of the Governor’s policy are being introduced in the Legislature and a “send them home” rally at the State House is being planned.

One popular rationale for rejecting the Governor’s proposal is the state’s own homelessness problem: “While I appreciate the desire to be sympathetic and helpful,” House minority leader Brad Jones told the Globe, “the state already faces enough of a challenge trying to care for its own homeless children.”

Representative Jones has a point, although it must be said that meeting that challenge has not been a high priority for him or for most other state lawmakers. In fact, the Legislature has been largely content to allow the Governor to continue his policy of denying emergency shelter to families with homeless children unless, as his regulations require, “the children of the household are in a housing situation not meant for human habitation, and where there is a substantial health and safety risk to the family that is likely to result in significant harm should the family remain in such housing situation.” This policy, the Patrick administration believes, serves as an important deterrent to those who would otherwise flood the system.

In the past nine months alone, nearly 2400 families with children — a far greater number than the 1000 children the Governor is proposing to help — obtained shelter in the state only after braving these risks by, for example, sleeping in cars and abandoned buildings. The Globe’s Yvonne Abraham, whose column yesterday described the acutely perilous journey of one nine-year old girl from Central America to the U.S., also wrote nearly two years ago about the dangers facing the state’s homeless families when the Governor’s policy was put into effect. In yesterday’s story, Dayanna from El Salvador was not raped. But in the October, 2102, as Abraham reported, Ginna from Boston, the mother of a 17-month old daughter, was not so fortunate.

Both these stories illustrate the point the Governor made last week: we are “great when we open our doors and our hearts to needy children, and diminished when we don’t.” Is there a good reason to be selective about who the needy children are?